own desti'uction,' 2 Pet. iii. 16 ; and therefore they judge that as the Scripture is so dangerous for ordinary people to meddle with, it is best to put it out of their reach, as we do a sword from children, though they cry nuich for it. See what a fair glove they draw over so foul a hand. But did Peter, because some unlearned and unstable souls wrested the Scripture, forbid them or any other, how weak soever, to read the Scripture ? This had carried some weight with it ; but we find just the contrary, for, in the following verses, the counsel he gives Christians, that they may not be led away with the error of the wicked, is, ' to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,' ver. 18. Light is the chariot that conveys the influences of the sun ; so the knowledge of Christ brings with it the influences of his grace into the heart. And how did Peter mean they should grow in the knowledge of Christ, if he would not have them read the Scriptures, which is the only book where it is taught? But the Papists would have their people learn the knowledge of Christ from their preaching of him, and not from the Scriptures, which they cannot so safely converse with. But, First, How shall they be assured that what they preach is true, except they have the Scripture, to which, as imto the true touchstone, they may bring their doctrine to be tried? Thus did the Bereans by Paid's scnuon. Acts xvii. 11 ; a preacher as good, I trow, as any of theirs. And, Secondly, Suppose they preach the truth, can they warrant that their words shall not be perverted and mistaken by their hearers? And if they cannot, why then are they suffered to preach in a vulgar tongue, when the word of God, for the same reason, is forbidden to be read by the people in a known tongue ? Truly, I am of that learned man's mind, that if God himself may not speak in a vulgar tongue, I see far less reason that a friar should ; and so the people shoidd know nothing at all of Christ. — Mede on Jer. X. 11. No, the true reason why they forbid the Scripture to be read is not to keep them fi'om errors and heresies, but to keep them from discovering those which they themselves impose upon them. Such trash as they trade in would never go off their hand did they not keep their shop thus dark ; which made one of their shavelings so bitterly complain of Luther for spoiling their market, saying, that but for him they might have persuaded the people of Germany to cat hay. Anything indeed will go down a blind man's throat. I do not wonder that their people, thus kept in ignorance, do so readily embrace their fopperies, and believe all their forgeries. The blind man must either sit still or go whither he pleaseth that leads him. We i"ead of a whole anuy, when once smitten with blindness, carried out of their way by one single man that had his eyes in his head, 2 Kings vi. 19. But this we may wonder at, that men who know the Scriptures (as many of their leaders do) and acknowledge their divinity dare be so impudent and audacious as to intercept this letter sent from the great God to the sons of men, and not suff'er them, except a few whom they think fit, to look on it, though it be subscribed and directed by God himself, not to any party or sort of men, but to every man where it comes, Rom. i. 7 ; 2 Cor. i. 1. This is a piece of impudence that cannot be paralleled. Wherefore are laws made, but to be promulgated ? — Scripture written, but to be read and known of all men? I am sure the apostle, by the same authority with which he wrote his epistle, commands it to be read in the church. Col. iv. 16. And did the ministers of those churches pocket them up, and conceal them from the people's notice, lest they should, by perverting them, be made hei'etics ? It is too tnie, some wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction : and so do some, for want of care in eating, choke themselves with their bread ; must all therefore starve for fear of being choked ? Some hurt themselves and friends with their weapons ; must therefore the whole army be disarmed, and only a few chief officers be allowed to wear a sword by their sides ? Truly, if this be argument enough to seal up the Bible from being read, we must not only deny it to the meaner and more unlearned sort, but also to the great rabbles and doctors ; for the grossest here- sies have bred in the finest wits. Prodigious errors have been as much beholden to the sophistry of Arius, as to the ignorance of jEtius. So that the upshot of all will be this, — the unlearned must not read the Scriptures, because they may pervert them through ignorance ; nor the learned, because they may wrest them by their subtlety. Thus we see, when proud men will be wiser than (iod, their foolish minds darken, till they lose the reason and understanding of men.
5^(5 AND THE SWOUD OF THE SPIRIT.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AGAINST THE SAME CHURCH OF ROME, FOR IMPUTING INSUFFICIENCY TO THE
SCRIPTURES.